????在任何地方的行政系統(tǒng)中，吉田的行為都算是不折不扣的抗命。更何況是在日本，吉田的做法基本上是不可想象的。因為在日本，層級決定了一切，它甚至決定了你在見到別人的時候應(yīng)該鞠多少度的躬。（去年11月底，吉田被降職為現(xiàn)場經(jīng)理，后來因為一種沒有向外界透露的疾病入院。）

????吉田在面對危機(jī)時的決定，說明了當(dāng)時的情形有多絕望。核電顧問佐藤表示：“他的做法完全是正確的?！?/p>

福島死士

????調(diào)查人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，在地震和海嘯后的幾個小時和幾天里，東電員工們也犯了一些重大錯誤，其中的一些錯誤至今也沒有得到解釋。

????其中的一個錯誤涉及一個叫做隔離冷凝器的重要設(shè)備，即便在失去外部電力的時候，它也能保持反應(yīng)堆內(nèi)的水位穩(wěn)定。福島第一核電站的操作人員不知為什么遲報了這個設(shè)備的故障，直到3月11日晚上，他們才承認(rèn)隔離冷凝器沒有運(yùn)轉(zhuǎn)。而且后來他們曾試圖手動打開一個之前關(guān)閉的閥門，但卻以失敗而告終。東電總部推遲做出“泄壓”的決定，也是由于他們認(rèn)為隔離冷凝器還在工作。在日本政府的報告看來，正是這個錯誤導(dǎo)致了3月12日一號反應(yīng)堆出現(xiàn)第一次巨大的氫氣爆炸。

????船橋委員會的報告也質(zhì)疑道，為什么從菅直人首相批準(zhǔn)泄壓計劃，到福島第一核電站首次泄壓，中間相隔了整整7個小時。而在這期間不停地有更多的氫氣泄入反應(yīng)堆保護(hù)殼。

????核電站內(nèi)的艱難情形，以及核電站外的混亂局面，可能是導(dǎo)致東電沒有采取更迅速的行動的主要原因。

????吉田在午夜過后就命令他的團(tuán)隊準(zhǔn)備給1號和2號反應(yīng)堆泄壓，菅直人首相在午夜1點(diǎn)30分左右批準(zhǔn)了泄壓計劃。

????不過核電站事先并沒有制定在失去電力的情況下操作泄壓閥的流程，因此吉田手下的操作人員們必須火速想出手動操作泄壓閥的辦法，然后冒著生命危險去給反應(yīng)堆泄壓。

????與此同時，政府也想確保福島第一核電站附近的居民都已被疏散。這可能得需要好幾個小時，尤其是因為居民們不知道該往哪個方向逃難。

????3月12日9點(diǎn)剛過，吉田派出了兩個小組去執(zhí)行任務(wù)。他們明知反應(yīng)堆里的輻射水平非常危險，但仍然志愿進(jìn)入反應(yīng)堆。每個小組分別負(fù)責(zé)打開幾個重要閥門。第一小組成功地執(zhí)行了任務(wù)，然后迅速撤了出來。但第二小組剛一進(jìn)入反應(yīng)堆，他們的“輻射劑量”——也就是輻射暴露水平立刻激增。其中一名操作人員立即暴露在106毫希的輻射中，超過了東電規(guī)定的100毫希的“應(yīng)急劑量限制”。

????In any chain of command situation anywhere, it was nothing less than insubordination. In a Japanese context, what Yoshida did is practically unthinkable. Hierarchy is everything in Japan. It literally dictates how low you should bow when meeting someone else. (In late November, Yoshida stepped down as site manager, having been hospitalized with an undisclosed illness.)

????Yoshida's decision in the face of crisis speaks volumes as to just how desperate the situation was then. "It was exactly the right thing to do," says Sato, the consultant.

Into the Fire

????In the first hours and days following the earthquake and tsunami, investigators have found TEPCO personnel made also critical mistakes—a couple of which are still unexplained.

????One involved a critical piece of equipment, known as an isolation condenser, which keeps the water level in the reactor constant even if offsite electricity is lost. On the night of March 11, TEPCO operators at the plant site belatedly recognized that the system was not functioning, and then once they did, tried and failed to open up manually a valve that had been closed.

????The assumption that the system was working delayed the decision to "vent", or depressurize, the reactor unit, a mistake that, in the eyes of the government's interim report, led to the first huge hydrogen explosion at reactor one the afternoon of March 12.

????The independent Funabashi report also questions why it took seven hours from the time Prime Minister Kan approved the plan to vent to the first attempt to execute it. All the while, more hydrogen was leaking into the reactor building.

????Conditions inside the plant—and confusion just outside of it— may have precluded swifter action.

????Yoshida had ordered his team to make preparations to vent reactors one and two shortly after midnight, and Kan, the Prime Minister, approved the plan at around 1:30am.

????But there was no procedure to operate the vent valves without power, so Yoshida's operators had to figure out on the fly how to do so manually—and then take potentially fatal risks to try to make it work.

????At the same time, the government wanted to make sure residents who still remained in the area around of the plant were evacuated. It would be several hours before that happened, in part because the residents had no idea in which direction they were to flee.

????Shortly after 9 in the morning of March 12, Yoshida dispatched the two teams. Both had volunteered to go into the reactor, knowing that radiation levels were dangerously high. Each headed to different sections to open critical valves.